Scottish Roundup

What a delight to be asked to write the weekly roundup and also a cracking money saving exercise as it seems this Saturday night ScottishToryBoy will be staying in writing about blogs…good times.

As Doctorvee stated last week, there were a number of posts on one subject and frankly this week is just the same. It has, however, brought back memories of University i.e. starting a task the night before it’s due in and although facing a deadline, still having plenty of time to procrastinate – I, unlike Doris Lessing’s, am full of praise for the internet, but I will get to her later.

There’s another lady to talk about first as it seems that many people are still discussing the future of Ms Alexander with even Murdo Fraser getting in on the act. While it seemed last weekend that the pressure was firmly on Ms Alexander, as the week progressed it seemed the story lost some of the heat, although I am sure some of the Sunday will turn the heat back on her.

The ever wonderful ScottishToryBoy, self promotion I know, picked up on the continued presence of the Labour and Lib Dem coalition at Holyrood, the Lib Lab pact if you will and posted a comment on the Lib Dem voice blog asking why no Lib Dem MSPs were willing to comment on the Paul Green affair. A comment which prompted one Lib Dem activist to express her disillusionment with the Lib Dems, you ain’t the only one judging by some recent Yougov polls that put Nicol Stephen’s popularity at just 4%, a fact Alex Salmond was quick to mention on Thursday!

Over in Nat land, Adam Smith was a socialist believes that the standards of the Scotsman newspaper have went down hill recently while his SNP colleague Calum Cashley believes modern politics scholars will remember the Fifth of November 2007 for the Unionist plot after Parliament voted for a commission to strengthen the devolution settlement. Brian Taylor gives a somewhat less partisan view of the alternative to the National Conversation while Tartan Hero believes the SNP are in a win-win situation as apparently we are all headed in the same direction, just at different speeds although Annabel Goldie seems to think differently:

Alex Neil: I congratulate Annabel Goldie on travelling over 10 years from being anti-devolution to being pro-devolution. At that rate of travel, will she be in favour of independence in 10 years’ time? As former minister Allan Stewart pointed out, independence is more logical than devolution.

Annabel Goldie: In eight years in this Parliament, I have always found Mr Neil’s taste to be too racy for my comfort, and I would certainly not pledge my or this country’s future to the direction in which he wants to travel.

Over at SNP Tactical Voting, while some of his blogging colleagues are endlessly devoting their time to writing about donorgate, Tactical Voter seems to believe that the scandal has run its course. Tartan Hero seems to be going for Charlie Gordon over his involvement in donorgate and struggles to believe Gordon’s conscience is clear while IndyGal seems to find Charlie Gordon’s video statement bizarre while also announcing she has a thing for men in kilts.

The North to Leith blog makes a very welcome return and it’s of little surprise what topic it writes about, yup, you’ve guessed it, Charlie Gordon. It seems however, the Councillor Mark McDonald has missed quite a bit of the goings on, it’s a good job other bloggers did not or I would have struggled for content today!!!

Justified Spinner appears to not like the moniker “Team Wendy” and, like many, is keen to find out who the Labour mole is who releases so much information to the media while the 1820 blog believes the only man that can save Scottish Labour from “jumped up cooncilors and hapless half-wits and numpties” is Baron Foukes of Cumnock and is urging readers to sign a petition in that vein as is the Scottish Patient. On the subject of Baron Foulkes, his speech in the Devolution Review debate on Thursday was cracking, it can be viewed here.

Seems the ever cutting Mr Eugenides is thoroughly enjoying Ms Alexander’s plight and, much like the SNP, views Wendy as a human shield. While many focussed on Wendy and co, J. Arthur MacNumpty blogs about the issue of election costs, an issue that seems to have gone somewhat unnoticed this week.

The Scottish Labour Party’s solo blogging voice, Kezia Dugdale, seems to have made herself an enemy in ConservativeMind where she is compared to Councillor Terry Kelly – Terry Kelly being one of four things ConservativeMind likes to talk about, the other three being chocolate oranges, George Galloway and the wrestler Kurt Angle!

However, it has been interesting to find some other Scottish Tory blogs out there; I felt I was the only one carrying the torch for so long after the demise of former Tory blogs, some more helpful to the party cause than others. ConservativeMind led to me stumble towards Right for Scotland who, like many others, has been blogging quite heavily on the Donorgate scandal while also criticising Aberdeen for rejecting Donald Trump’s plans while stating “If the inbred country bumkin twats want to turn down what is in effect shed loads of free money, housing, jobs and prosperity let them.” Charming!

Freedom and whisky mentions the intervention of the SNP Government in the rejected Donald Trump bid. Osama Saeed has a wee pop at Douglas Alexander not appearing on Question Time while Right for Scotland believes that the family problem Mr Alexander had to deal with was his sister going to jail. Clairwil seems quite critical of Wendy for hiding during the ongoing scandal; certainly she is critical of the excuses Wendy has given.

Over in Labour land Kezia Dugdale is back to blogging after her secondment to Wendy Alexanders office and discusses the issue of prescription charges and who was right, Labour (extending the number of chronic conditions eligible for exemptions) or the SNP (abolition of all charges – every thing is free!) Aside from that, she’s been rather quiet, perhaps still reeling after being bought a drink by ScottishToryBoy who has notoriously deep pockets and short arms!!

Edinburgh City Councillor Andrew Burns is concerned by some contradictory messages from certain quarters over whether or not bikes will be allowed on the Trams while his Labour group leader, Ewan Aitken, hits out at the CoSLA Scottish Government concordat and CoSLA’s reluctance to talk about figures.

Believe it or not some bloggers found other stuff to talk about, crazy I know. Both John Connell and Mike Power discuss Doris Lessing’s acceptance speech after winning the Nobel Prize for literature and seem to have quite similar views on many aspects of her speech.

It seems that the row over Morrissey’s comments in NME has continued and it is quite clear that Anas does not like “the streak of wank that is Morrissey.” I never expected to mention Morrissey in a blogging roundup; I was toying with even going to see him on his tour in Feb – funny that he’s making such comments with a tour looming.

Staying with music, Robert Sharp believes that some confuse evolution with death when they claim MP3’s are killing the music industry. He also comes up with some nice ideas on how a band could maximise their output from a 12 track album every 18 months or so to releasing a single track a month, say, as part of a podcast. An intriguing post, but one I hope my favourite artist, Ryan Adams, doesn’t read, his fondness of releasing numerous records a year is proving to be my downfall.

Onto the serious issue of blogging censorship, well, not quite, but it seems that blogging is restricted at Glasgow City council according to BellgroveBelle although she seems most concerned that people in the IT department don’t even know what a blog is! Seems strange that a vehicle for informing constituents of what you’ve been up to, at absolutely no cost to the taxpayer, should be blocked. I’m glad to hear at least some level of blogging has been returned.

Anyway, I think that’ll do for this week. Thanks to Doctorvee for letting me in on this roundup malarkey, I have to admit I rather enjoyed it and also for passing me the nominations. I have no idea who is writing next weeks roundup but I wish them all the best, you never know, I might even get asked back..

Cheers,

ScottishToryBoy